Thought I’d give you an update on the Powder Room Reno. We are still amassing all the items we need. So far we have:
a toilet
the tile
the mirror
some towels
a few tchotchkes
a soap pump
new door handles
a vent fan and electrical stuff
and many many paint chips
So we are doing pretty well!
The sink will get picked up this week and the faucet has been ordered. Our light ended up being on back-order but should be arriving on Monday. We are going to the US this weekend and were hoping to pick it up at the border on our way back. If it is not there we will have to make a second trip. The people at Shades of Light have been amazing in trying to get it to us on time. I literally have an e-mail reading “If the paint dries in time it will ship today,” and it did. Keep your fingers crossed for us!
I have wanted rain-barrels forever. They make so much sense! Why waste clean drinking water on plants and grass? Why pay for something that is free?
I like free.
But as they say, you have to spend money to make save money, so when the opportunity came up to buy a pair of old white-oak whiskey barrels off some guy on Kijiji, I didn’t pass it up.
Here they are, delivered for $200.
To turn the whiskey barrels into rain barrels, I also had to buy two Earth Minded DIY Rain Barrel kits from the BEST store on the planet, Canadian Tire. They were $30 each.
The kit includes everything you need to make the rain barrel; hoses, spigot, rubber gaskets, even the hole saws. The only tools we needed were an electric drill, a leveller, measuring tape, a long screw (important!), a pencil, work gloves and safety glasses.
The barrels need to be placed within 3 feet of a down spout on a level surface. We had some old pavers lying around and used those to set the barrels on.
The kit came with detailed instructions, and we also found this video very helpful.
One snag in the process was that the wood of our barrel was thicker than the hole saws were deep. Liam figured out a solution fairly quickly. Just saw as far as you can in the wood and stop. Insert your long screw into the drill hole so it gets a good grip, then twist and pull. The whiskey-soaked wood should splinter easily releasing a large layer. Go back with the whole saw and cut in the rest of the way.
Last year Ottawa experienced a drought for much of the summer. We were told to stop watering our lawns and gardens. Then there was a rash of house fires caused by the extremely dry conditions of people’s lawns, and we were told to start watering again! This year I will be prepared with gallons of stored rain water to partial out during the hot dry days.
Plastic barrels can of course be purchased in garden centres everywhere, but these don’t always look great and aren’t cheap either. For $130 a piece and one afternoons work, I am very pleased with the aesthetic of my barrels. They add character and history to my yard while helping to simultaneously save a precious resource … and on my water bill!
It has been about 10 months since the bubby and I bought our first house, but somehow we still feel like renters … renters who pay for every little thing, shovel all the snow, do all the yard work, and stay up nights worrying about frozen downspouts.
We haven’t yet gotten to the really fun part of owning our own home; doing whatever we want with it!
So it’s time we start decorating our house and making it feel more like home. Once Easter is over and the family visitors are back on their way, we are going to renovate the smallest possible space; the powder room. I think it’s a good idea to test our DIY skills on only a few cubic feet at a time. See how it goes.
Step One has been to spend crazy amounts of time on the internet looking for inspiration.
From this I have learnt that I like light greys, geometric prints, and the contrast between modern finishes and natural wood.
Step Two has been to spend even more time on the internet looking for products that match my style and that I can actually get my hands on (this is a challenge because apparently the USA thinks Canada is an inaccessible arctic country and doesn’t like to ship here).
Here is my plan for the Powder Rooms project … even if I have to drive to the damn border and pick most of it up myself!
The image-map above is a little off, but all the links are there, somewhere. Scroll over for more information on each piece.
The light fixture is what sets the whole thing off for me. It’s from Shades of Light and is the piece it will be hard for me to get, since there is not shipping here to Canada. But I HAVE to have it. I love drama of it and the Edison bulb is to die for.
At first we were going to leave the floors as tiles over-lap with the hall. This is another challenge as it will mean re-tiling outside the powder room as well. I think the classic and clean look will be well worth it.
The budget for this Reno is $1700, which is high for a 12 square-foot room (think $142/square foot, yikes!). But this is a total gut job (new toilet, paint, floor, et cetera) and we think it’s worth putting higher-end quality products in a so often used space.
Got a lot of odds and ends tied up around the house lately.
Here was simple idea to get the central vacuum hose off the floor. I had this hose hanger from the old house and figured if it worked for and outside hose it would work for an indoor one as well. Make sure you use drywall screws to support all the weight.
Instantly my laundry room looks more organised.
Another project was to spray paint our living-room tables to better match our very fancy futon couch. Gosh I cant wait to completely decorate this room. All we have done so far it scrounge together ‘for now’ furniture. For now though, these look a lot better.
a slightly improved living room
I got a few other things done as well, I’m working on some tutorials. Stay tuned, and slowly, slowly, you will see this house come together. I promise.
I can not even convey how excited I am to be buying a house with a fireplace. A fireplace! Where you can burn real wood, indoors, all year round. Not just the summer campfire -although those are awesome too- but whenever I want!
I suppose it’s because fireplaces were a big part of my childhood. At the family cottage, the wood stove was the only heating for a long time. We kept it stoked on cold spring and falls days, and cooked on it when the power went out (which was every time it rained even a little bit). My little brother’s first sentence was “hot hot, no touch” in regards to the wood stove which stood obtrusively in the middle of a hallway.
Like pretty much every other human being, I fell in love with the smell of burning wood. Taking fall walks in the woods always concluded with getting a whiff of the chimney smoke and knowing you were almost home.
Every Christmas Eve of my childhood, my uncle lit the fireplace in his house. As arguably the most responsible of all my cousins, and with all the adults busy with the party, it was my job to keep the fire going until midnight. The smell and sound of crackling timbers are irrevocably tied up with thoughts of home and family.
Realtor photo of fireplace in my new home!
And now my home has a fireplace! The smell of my house will welcome me home after long chilly walks. My family can enjoy the warmth and the light on Christmas Eve and I can again keep it blazing all through the night with the … oh wait, what am I going to poke it with? I don’t have a fire poker, or tongs or anything! Where do you even buy stuff like that? Oh no, whatever am I going to do?
To the internet!
Okay, don’t panic, Canadian Tire sells them; I love Canadian Tire! Wow those are ugly – not ugly, sorry if you bought a fireplace set at Canadian Tire, just not my style. But I’ve learnt two very important things; I’m not a fan of iron and I should probably get an extinguisher. Thanks Canadian Tire, good suggestion. Canadian Tire always has my back.
I have this on a mug
Elsewhere on the internet:
Interesting, another term for what I’m looking for is a ‘hearth set’. Yeah, I’m absolutely going to start calling my fireplace a hearth. Sounds nicer and much less dangerous. Ooo these are nice or these. Modern, sleek, sexy, I’m sure these will go great with my hearth. Wow, they are like $200 … $900!!! To poke wood? Forget that. Its like throwing money into the fire without getting to watch it burn. Hmm, why am I buying new anyway? I’m on a budget and certainly a product that has stood the test of time is a better option.
To the classifieds!
On my local Kijiji, I learn that I also hate brass as a material. Although I am in the much nicer $20 range, all the brass sets quickly get rejected.
Then I spot this one, the ad says brass but it looks a lot like copper. The stand has some nice style that hints at craftsmanship, I love the twisted rope handles, and 6 pieces including a bonus bellows. I think I’ve found by hearth set! I negotiated the price down and bought it for $30.
my Kijiji hearth set find
I picked it up last night and its in great shape, having never been used. Apparently the very nice family selling it received it as a gift but have a gas hearth (weird gift). All the pieces are nice and heavy, the stand is very solid, and the bellows work amazingly. I was right about it being copper! -much nicer than brass or iron in my opinion. It’s a bit tarnished but I’ll polish it up and show you the results. For now, take a look what I found online:
my hearth set brand new
The same set, minus the bellows, for $114! I got a bargin and am very pleased. I didn’t think it possible but I am now even more excited to be living in a home with a fireplace hearth.
As our moving date approaches, I’m starting the get excited about some of the eco-opportunities our new residence will afford. Although we are up-sizing, I’m very confident that we can live greener in our new home.
One way we can do this is by participating in Ottawa’s Green Bin composing program (as high-rise dwellers we weren’t included). So while checking it out today I found the list of what you are allowed to put in the bin here. I was impressed by a lot of stuff on the list (cotton balls, meat, dryer lint, kitty litter!) so made a mental note that I should print this list and stick it on the fridge once we got going with compositing. And then I got sad. This was going to be the first item on my new fridge in my new house that I have über-stylish-chic plans for? This dull, boring, functional, City of Ottawa generated list? So sad.
So I got out my handy keyboard (my weapon of choice), googled “word cloud”, and found Wordle: yay! A bit of tweaking the list, and lots of fun playing around with colours and fonts, and I ended up with a graphic I’m proud to put on my fridge … or hang as art in the kitchen, or stick on some crafty bulletin board I create, etcetera.
My boyfriend and I are considering moving out of our student apartment and into something a little more … pulchritudinous. As we start looking, we naturally begin to imagine what our dream house would be like and a wish list of objects to fill that house is created; stainless steel appliances, home gym with an infrared sauna, king sized bed, surround sound system, etc. I think most people can relate to this type of daydream brainstorm, what surprised both of us was how much our domestic fantasy-land extended to our cats.
On top of fostering kittens for the Ottawa Humane Society, Liam and I stake our claim to the Crazy Cat Couple title by owning two cats of our own. Marcel is a 5-year-old tuxedo’s short-hair on a perpetual diet. Liam bought him about a year before we met. Dexter is a 1½ year-old high energy, very demanding, vocal, black ball of chaos we adopted after fostering him twice from the OHS.
Naturally our boys are spoiled rotten, and if we are treating ourselves with a bigger better lifestyle, then Marcel and Dex will be experiencing an upgrade as well. Here is some of the stuff we would love to have for them in a new place:
Pioneer Pet Ceramic Drinking Fountain – 59.99USD + shipping
esmartcat.com
For cats, running water is a must. The flow is appealing and encourages them to drink more; indoor cats tend to get dehydrated due to dry air heating. Our guys already have a water fountain, but it’s ugly blue plastic and very hard to keep clean. Plastic is porous and traps bacteria that can cause feline acne (worse than it sounds). We’ve been okay so far, but this would certainly be a cleaner healthier option. The ceramic dish is easy to take a part and goes in our ‘dream’ stainless steel dishwasher. It also looks fantastic!
Pillar Perfect Petfeeder -492.26 CND + shipping
perfectpetfeeder.com
As I said before, Marcel is on a perpetual diet. He gets restricted quantities of expensive veterinary food three times a day -and he has been for two years. He hasn’t lost any weight, but he hasn’t gained any either. Now we keep him on the diet because we are afraid if we try something easier/cheaper he will balloon even more and get diabetes or some other health problem. Three feedings a day isn’t easy to keep up with, especially since we graduated and are at home a lot less. Liam’s sister, who lives with us, is still a student at home a lot and feeds them when we can’t, but after the move we won’t be so lucky.
The perfect pet feeder automatically dispenses specified quantities of food, at any time you want. It’s guaranteed that your cat won’t get his little paw under the lid, it has a battery back-up power supply to feed your pets in a blackout, its sleek and stylish, can feed both pets at once, and it’s really expensive! But I think we are going to make this wish list item come true anyway; both our guys get stressed between meals and feeding them more often ourselves isn’t practical. Cat’s (like people) who eat smaller portions more times a day are usually are healthier and maybe this is the edge Marcel needs to get his weight under control. Also, some how the 7am meal time kept getting earlier and earlier and now Liam is woken up at 4am by our darling cats screaming for food (I’m a deep sleeper). This top-of-the-line incomparable product is the way to go, and I think will make all four of our lives easier.
Turbo Tracks – 19.99CND each
turbotrack.com
We got them a Turbo Track for Christmas and it was a hit. Dexter especially loved chasing the ball around, and to this day gets confused when it goes under the bridge (which way will it come out?). But with only one track the toy sits in its now boring crazy-8 configuration, and only gets a passing swat every once in a while. Buying more tracks lets you connect them together, use multiple balls, and create and infinite number of stimulating challenges for your cat. In our new home, I’d love to have room for a super turbo track … say 8-10 tracks, to rival even Venus’s.
((I love 0:54 where she uses to box as part of the fun))
Cat-Grass Table
eatdrinkcraft.blogspot.com
No cat should be allowed to roam the streets. Sure, they love being outside, but so would a kid until it was lost, alone, hungry, exposed, and in danger of cars, animals, and not-so-kind-people. Marcel and Dexter are indoor cats, and this will not change when we move out of our apartment building. But I would love for them to be outside, while supervised, on a harness and leash … that is if they even want to go outside. Right now on the rare occasion that venture out into the apartment hallway, it takes about 30 seconds of nervous crawling before something terrifies them and they come shooting back in. So in-case they aren’t brave enough to explore the back yard, I would love to be able to bring a little bit of the outside in. This DIY project by Jessie is perfect inside our out:
And this more finished table by Emily Wettstein is so beautiful, it just happens to be awesome for cats.
Cat Climbing Wall
No surprise here; cats love to climb. The higher they can get the more fun they have. People like to be on the ground, and sadly, houses are designed only for people. But if we are sharing our space with feline members of the family, shouldn’t we take there needs into consideration? I would love to do some of the climbing cat walls seen in these inspiring posts:
The image-map above is a little off, but all the links are there, somewhere. Scroll over for more information on each piece.
